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Description

Mixing Media: Creating a Studio Practice

Practice takes practice. Explore different ways into a establishing a daily creative practice, from visual responses to written texts to timed creative challenges using favorite materials. Collage, draw, write, mix media and experiment, all with attention to ways of developing practices and habits to integrate into daily living.

Once a month during the fall semester, join artist and MCLA professor of art Melanie Mowinski at Maker’s Mill for a three-hour mixed media making date. Each session will begin with a guided writing/drawing reflection, followed by a mixed-media demo. The final two hours will be devoted to working on one’s own art practice. Participants are asked to bring current projects on which they are working. Some materials will be provided. While the activities are designed to build on one another, you can also choose to just attend one or two sessions.

September 17th:

Collages surfaces: layering or painting with paper and the joy of gesso.

October 22nd:

Simple stencils and stamp pads.

November 5th:

Newspaper black out and poetic inquiry.

December 10th:

Packing tape transfers and other transfers.

About the Instructor:

Melanie Mowinski began her daily practice over 20 years ago as a Peace Corps Volunteer. What began as a way to document the “toughest job she would ever love,” evolved into one of the most important parts of her artistic practice. Her daily practice varies according to the season, for example, for the past four years, she has made a collage-a-day for her Advent calendar during the holiday season. These workshops build on practices she uses during that time.

Her work is in numerous collections, including the Tate Modern, Oberlin College, and the Clark Art Institute. She's taught workshops at Wells Book Arts Center, Williams College, and other centers around the world. She holds master degrees from Yale University and The University of the Arts.

Mowinski is an Associate Professor of Art at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) in North Adams, MA and is the founder and director of PRESS: Letterpress as a Public Art Project.